US Vice President JD Vance says he does not regret campaigning for outgoing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who lost elections on the weekend, but would cooperate well with the country's next leader.
Vance said on US broadcaster Fox News on Monday that he was "sad" that Orbán had lost.
At the same time, he said: "We will work very well I'm sure with the next prime minister of Hungary."
Vance travelled to Budapest before the parliamentary election on Sunday to drum up support for the right-wing populist leader, who had been in power for 16 years.
However, the centre-right Tisza party of Péter Magyar - a former ally of Orbán's - won by a clear margin.
Vance said the US had supported Orbán not because it believed he would win, but because "it was the right thing to do to stand behind a person who had stood behind us for a very long time."
He said Orbán had been one of the few European leaders to "stand up to the bureaucracy in Brussels that has been very, very bad for the United States" and for US companies.
